Most popular music performed today includes, as part of the instrumentation used therein, a variety of tones obtained from sets of drums. Normally, the musician playing the drums will have several separate instruments arranged around him so that he can easily produce a variety of tones by striking the vellum, or head, of drums having various configurations. Examples of these prior art musical instruments include congo type drums, tom-tom drums and floor toms, for example. The variety of tones produced by each different type of drum is dependent upon the taughtness of the drum head over the drum shell, and the configuration of the drum shell itself. Until recently, the various tones produced by different drums were controlled by varying the generally circular diameter of the drum shell and/or the depth or height of the shell within which the sound produced by striking the vellum reverberated. Thus, conventional drum sets usually comprise a multiple number of drums having shells of varying diameter and depth.
It would be very advantageous if a single instrument comprising one single vellum, or head, could be provided which would effectively produce the various tonal qualities heretofore obtainable only from a multiple number of drum instruments. Among the advantages to such an instrument would be convenience of transportation, cost effectiveness, and ease of use. Multiple tone drums have been disclosed in the prior art; however, such prior art devices employed separate vellums mounted on a single shell in order to produce the multiple number of tones. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,858,724. Furthermore, such devices were not as easy to use as a series of individual drums since the separate vellums were mounted at right angles to one another requiring the musician to apply his talents to drum heads positioned both vertically and horizontally.